The immigrant barge - what’s actually wrong with using it?

[NC523]

Educate me!

I looked at pics from the inside, it all looks very much like standard student accommodation to me, including common rooms/relaxation areas/health support on board. Residents can go on & off the boat, it’s passed fire etc safety and been used to house people in lots of other situations. I don’t understand why people think it’s not ok. Can anyone explain please?

There is a bus service once and hour - for 500 people - honestly how many buses do you think you are likely to have to queues for to be guaranteed a space? Say it is a big enough bus to take 50 people ( and we don't know that it is) - that is a 10 hour queue if everyone want to leave the barge on the same day. And how would they get back? They would have to start queing for the bus back 10 hours before the last bus.

Realistically - no, they can't get out. Not all of them, and not every day. Some of them on some days maybe, it they are prepared to risk missing the curfew

@LauraNorda

You know there are many other different qualities of accommodation between an overcrowded prison ship and The Dorchester?

My family were immigrants, and while their professional qualifications might have been ‚understood‘ in the country they immigrated to, they certainly weren’t recognised.
Same applied to their friends from the same background, hence my question.

I guess the only answer is to build more housing- and build and build and build, which is exactly what's happening everywhere to the detriment of countryside or even towns. And you will never have enough housing because there are simply too many people- and immigration of course adds to the need for more housing stock. So we need to build more and more - and so it goes on

@M340

This is the same thing that has happened in an area some 15 miles from me (not saying where I live,) but yep 100s of asylum seekers been put in travelodges and premier inns and B & Bs, and the crime rate has gone up massively. Also, lots of things have happened that you have mentioned - women catcalled, sexually harassed, and lots more thefts from local shops.

Very disturbing that some posters try to deny it, and mock and belittle peoples genuine concerns. As you say, it's OK to sit there looking down from your ivory tower when you are not affected by it.

Also, funny how these asylum seekers are always men isn't it?

As someone whose grandparents were murdered in concentration camps I find this disgusting.

Yes and most are qualified doctors apparently - the rise in crime levels must be unrelated. I’m sure you’ll get some charts and data soon proving you wrong.
like I said before people live in a bubble and ignore what’s going on around them because they are so determined to be right

My 4 all went to uni, none of them had to share a room with 3 other people, none of them had to sleep in bunks and they were busy at uni or working or out socialising and spent little time in their rooms. None of them were in halls that the local fire brigade said was unsafe. So nothing like an student accommodation I'm familiar with.

If these non-genuine asylum seekers are in hotels causing havoc in the local community, that's an argument for speeding up the asylum process and shipping them back home, isn't it? Not continuing to pay for their food and board to the tune of £6 billion a year because you think if you process their application more quickly it might act as a 'draw'?

@Alexandra2001 ive not reconsidered I still think that we should house in military bases, off shore or on another territory until claims have been processed. There has to be a deterrent. If you enter and are swiftly deported the incentive is removed. I also think this would benefit genuine cases - as we have seen from the HK, Afghanistan and Ukraine cases the UK is a welcoming country but what it can’t cope with is mass undocumented arrivals.

This.

The problem is the people smugglers, it’s so easy to get a boat from Africa to Europe now and the people leaving are lied to, told they’ll be welcomed with open arms and given jobs etc. The focus needs to be on making people smuggling a dangerous and unpleasant profession to be in.

Building asylum seeker accomodation doesn’t work, it just fills up and then we need more. There isn’t room in the UK for all the homeless people who want to come here.

No wonder we are stuck with the Tories...the lack of basic understanding/common sense in this question is staggering.

emmmm war torn France???? hello ... maybe read newspapers.. not the daily mail

How would you feel if you were running away from a legitimate war torn country where there is a high chance you will be raped/ killed or separated from your kids/ husband. Then you think I'll pay somebody my life's savings to get a boat to a better life in a safe country. On the boat journey your family die.. they fall overboard including your kids.. then you get to the country (just) and are told that you need to go and stay in a boat... on the sea.. the same sea that killed your loved ones trying to get a better life... that the community does not want you ... This is cruelty ... if the UK ever does experience a war and if our lives are at risk.. where will you run to...??? ever think about that... ? ever think about people from the UK who go overseas for a better life.. better weather etc.. hoping to find jobs and a happier life maybe.... Read the papers not the daily mail and educate yourself re what is really going on out in the world

@Iwasafool were your 4 kids' uni rooms and meals free of charge?

If not it's a bit pointless comparing the standard of uni halls to a boat in Dorset.

There are a few asylum hotels in my area. For the very few families genuinely fleeing the community has rallied around doing everything we can to make them welcome and help them build a new life. The majority are economic migrants from Albania which is a safe country and do not need to be here. If they can offer skills and contribute of course they are welcome but our local parks and shopping areas are full of young men hanging around who are intimidating and I no longer allow my older dc to go to town after school. This is in a very affluent Home Counties town not that it matters. I have no problem with immigration and genuine asylum seekers who deserve to be welcomed with dignity my problem is the ones who don’t need to be here and make a park where the dc once loved to play and hang around after school a no go area.

Maybe because our GOV can't even cope with the current crisis going on. I don't mean this in a rude way but we have a housing crisis here!! People don't realise unless you or your friends/family are trying to get rehoused currently. I also agree with @Nevermay you hit the nail on the head but charity starts at home.

if the UK ever does experience a war and if our lives are at risk.. where will you run to...??? ever think about that... ? ever think about people from the UK who go overseas for a better life.. better weather etc.. hoping to find jobs and a happier life maybe....

But these are all different situations and entirely different reasons to leave one‘s country - war, wanting a better life, wanting better weather… So in different situations different rules apply.
As I mentioned previously, my family were immigrants.
They left because they wanted a better life - and ended up moving not to the country that had been their original choice (because they had friends over there and some basic language skills), but to an entirely different one, because the one they‘d chosen originally stopped accepting new arrivals.
So I fully understand the motivation behind immigration.
But I do find that people on threads like this one sometimes end up comparing apples with oranges - refugees fleeing war zones on one hand and economic migrants looking for a better life on another, people in genuine need of shelter (whether or not they have the professional skills their host country might need) and people who might have the right qualifications to fill the gaps in the NHS and so on (whether or not they’re actually escaping a war zone). These are all different things.

Well, then explain where we have military bases to house 100k, and increasing, migrants and how we get countries to process our migrants? and then house the failed ones?

No of course we cannot not, but your ideas are pie in the sky and add nothing.

Very few from HK should be coming here as an asylum seeker, they are purely economic, HK is a (relatively) safe place, check out Gov.uk and travel advice to HK...

I agree @inamarina but people choose to boil a very complicated set of scenarios down to racist cruelty when it is so much more than that.

In theory my grandfather (DM’s DF) came to Netherlands and France to work and then to England to also work. But he was dual national English/German and his mother was German and father was dual national and English/French. Grandfather was born in Luxembourg and brought up in Germany until after WW1.

My grandfather would never have claimed benefits and always worked but I think he did have sympathy for migrants and refugees as when he was a child in Germany he was targeted and abused mostly by adults not children for being half English. He was also lucky in that his family was fairly wealthy even though they lost everything eg money etc twice over due to both world wars.

I’ve just read the refugee AMA and I recall speaking to an Afghanistan lawyer friend of mine who had a similar story to the AMA woman and recalls teachers who helped her. I’ve also got a half Vietnamese half Chinese friend who was a refugee in 70s but she doesn’t mention her story much.

I guess when you know peoples’ experiences first hand or even second or third hand then you connect easier than just seeing men boarding a container ship who you don’t know at all.

Very few from HK should be coming here as an asylum seeker, they are purely economic, HK is a (relatively) safe place, check out Gov.uk and travel advice to HK...

Er, you know why people are coming specifically here, from Hong Kong right now? Right?

So why do people complain that asylum seekers are economic migrants, if most don't object to economic migrants?

I can't see the thread title and not think ...

We have a housing crisis due to there being over a million empty homes, and yet few seem to want to talk about that.